The New Professors Take the Stage
"As students of Kizen…."
Simon poured every ounce of his focus into simply reading the words in front of him.
Stumbling wasn't an option, and mispronouncing a single syllable was absolutely out of the question.
The oath's content seemed to be the usual boilerplate—honor the Academy's name, uphold its dignity, devote oneself to one's education—but the harder he concentrated, the less any of it actually registered in his head as the words left his mouth.
And just like that, the minute slipped by, and the oath was over.
Haaaaah. Didn't mess up.
"Why are you so tense?"
At Serne's teasing question, Simon answered with an embarrassed look.
"I guess I psyched myself out about not making a mistake."
"You sounded plenty smooth to me~"
Following Aaron's next instruction, the two of them finished the oath, descended the stairs, and returned to their places.
"You did great, Simon!"
Camibarez and Dick welcomed him back. Simon slid into his seat and stole a glance at Meilin. She was wearing an extremely, extremely sour expression.
"Was it good?"
Somehow, he got the feeling he needed to choose his answer carefully here.
"Not really. My mind just went totally blank."
Meilin scoffed and turned away.
And with the student representative oath concluded, the true highlight of the opening ceremony had arrived.
"The professors. Please enter."
It was the moment when hearts burned hotter than any other. As Kizen's professors—every last one of them a star in their own right—filed into the auditorium, the students erupted into the loudest cheers of the day.
Everyone's looking well!
Simon's gaze lingered on the familiar faces.
Jane, Class A's homeroom professor and the Vice Principal.
Hong Peng of Magic Combat, and Bahil of Curse Magic.
Beyond them, he spotted Eric of Jet-Black Mechanics, Umbra of Spirit Studies, and more besides.
"And there is one additional announcement. Several new professors have joined us for this Integrated Second Semester."
At Aaron's words, the students began to murmur. They had already been buzzing about who the new Toxicology professor would be.
"Then allow me to introduce them. Professors, please come forward."
Three men and women, still relatively unfamiliar to the students, stepped up to the podium. Aaron introduced them one by one, starting from the right.
"This may come as something of a surprise. Recommended personally by Professor Silaje, who is currently away on assignment, this is Professor Walter Hahn, who will be taking over the Hemomancy curriculum."
A man in a brown suit and glasses stepped forward.
Cheers burst out from every direction. The screams from the female students in particular practically rivaled artillery fire.
"Who is that? Who is that?"
"Wow, that face is straight-up cheating."
"Yeah, I can hear the Hemomancy major applications multiplying as we speak."
Meilin, seeing Walter for the first time, was similarly stunned, and even the male students marveled with completely genuine admiration.
He wasn't at the level where you'd feel jealous—he looked like a walking statue. Walter came forward and took the amplification crystal a henchman handed him.
"It's a pleasure to meet you all. My name is Walter Hahn."
At his soft, mellow voice, female students all across the hall began complaining of dizziness.
"It is my great honor to be taking over the Hemomancy classes in Professor Silaje's stead. My skills fall far short of Professor Silaje's, but I will do my very best."
Thunderous applause rained down.
He added a few brief remarks, wrapped up his introduction, and returned to his place. Aaron moved on to the next professor.
"Next, we have the new professor of Divine Defense."
Divine Defense classes up until now had been less about teaching students how to ward off holy power and more akin to ideological reeducation.
Professor Hullute, who had taught the subject in the first semester, had been a necromancer who spent his entire life holding the Federation's front lines. He was a soldier to the bone, and he despised priests with every fiber of his being.
Why are priests evil? Why must we crush the Holy Federation?
He spoke of the priests' cruelty and hypocrisy, trotting out stories of terrorist attacks by fanatics alongside his own wartime experiences, fanning the students' hatred and fury.
Perhaps because such indoctrination dominated the curriculum, critics had pointed out that the actual, crucial methods of defending against divinity were somewhat neglected.
In the wake of the Saintess incident, Nephthys had made a sweeping decision. This appointment could only be called truly unprecedented.
"Ahem."
This old man in white robes, waving a folding fan in one hand, was the very same monstrously powerful priest that every first-year had crossed paths with at least once in front of Kizen's gates.
"Let me say this before the introduction."
Aaron's voice was grave.
"I will not tolerate the slightest disrespect toward this professor. Ever."
At the iciness of Aaron's words, the students' expressions hardened. A few of the more extreme students had been gearing up to boo at the word "priest," but Aaron's warning shoved the words right back down their throats.
"He was extraordinarily difficult to bring to us. This is Professor Farahan—president of the Anti-Federation Association, and former bishop of Efnel."
Clap clap clap.
Scattered, dutiful applause echoed through the hall.
It was nothing like the applause Walter had received—in fact, the students who had been clapping shot self-conscious glances around and cut it off almost immediately.
Even so, Farahan chuckled warmly and nodded toward Aaron. A silent thank you for your consideration. Aaron bowed his head in courteous reply.
Amid the deathly stillness, Farahan walked forward and accepted the amplification crystal from a henchman.
"…."
This was, without question, an unprecedented situation.
A priest formally wielding teaching authority—and not at some backwater school, but at Kizen itself—was more than enough to send shockwaves through the student body.
They would now have no choice but to sit under a priest's instruction.
A not-insignificant portion of the student body regarded priests as beings that deserved to be hunted down and exterminated, and the Saintess incident had brought that hostility to a boiling point.
So what would Farahan—defected from the Holy Federation in a time like this—actually say?
Every eye in the hall, Simon's included, locked onto him. Even the seated professors stole glances, waiting for Farahan's mouth to open.
His white robes billowing around his broad frame, Farahan stepped forward with the unearthly grace of a Taoist immortal and raised the amplification crystal to his lips.
"Efnel."
Slowly, he spread his palm open.
"Wants nothing more in this world than my head."
FWOOOOOOSH!
Flames of divinity erupted from his palm, swelling toward the ceiling with terrifying force.
Screams and gasps burst out on all sides. Even the professors seated at the back flinched and recoiled.
"Efnel teaches that this holy power descends only upon those 'chosen by the Goddess.'"
He extinguished the flame as he spoke.
"And yet my very existence refutes that logic of theirs, head-on. How could they not want me dead? A hundred times, a thousand times a day, they pray for divine punishment to strike me down."
The old man's voice rolled across the entire Great Auditorium. With a single display of holy power, he had seized complete command of a hall that had been in utter disarray, and even Simon, seated among the students, couldn't help but admire it.
"If Efnel truly represented the Goddess's will, then how would they explain the divinity of this old man, who stands against everything Efnel believes!"
His eyes were deep with shadow and old pain.
"Hear me, young ones. Efnel's method of governing its people is built on lies. They blind their eyes and stop their ears. No ideology, no knowledge is permitted to circulate. People are shut away in dark rooms with nothing but a lamp and a scripture, forced to read it over and over until their minds, their hearts, and their values harden into stone. That is their way."
His voice—resolute, and achingly sincere—rippled outward like waves from a dropped stone.
"In the Goddess's name, the people must learn to celebrate having their property unjustly seized. In the Goddess's name, they must refuse all outside culture and knowledge for clouding their minds. Those who dare to ask questions are tortured by inquisitors and crushed with terror. And they call that righteousness."
The air grew heavy.
"So tell me—which side is truly deserving of the Goddess's punishment!"
Clap.
Someone among the students, face blank with daze, clapped once.
Clap. Clap.
Two more, then three, joined in.
Clap clap clap clap clap clap.
Modest but scattered applause began to bloom across the hall. The old man smiled gently and gave a small bow.
Farahan believed in God's existence—but he believed that Efnel distorted and twisted the true divine will to entrench its own privileges and sate its own greed.
The scriptures said the Goddess cherished and loved all creation and all humanity equally. Then why did they teach that the other half of mankind deserved to be put to the sword?
The scriptures said the Goddess called all people to wakefulness. Then why did they blind eyes and stop ears?
The longer he lived a life of faith, the larger these questions grew—until at last he kicked away his bishop's seat and walked out.
His destination was the Dark Alliance. Nephthys welcomed him gladly and entrusted him with rallying the priests who had abandoned their faith.
"I will not force my values upon any of you. But I am certain that Efnel is the common enemy of us all. This old man will likely not live to see the day of liberation. But I can still plant seeds. With my knowledge and experience, I will teach you how to stand against divinity. It is my hope that someday, you will drive out the evil and save the innocent people under their yoke."
Farahan lowered the crystal from his mouth and nodded toward Aaron. That was all.
Aaron addressed the students.
"Now. Applause."
The students clapped.
Hostility and deeply rooted preconceptions didn't change over the course of a few speeches, but the applause was a little louder than it had been when Farahan first walked up.
Farahan entered the faculty seats and took a seat beside Walter.
"And finally, the last professor to join Kizen. This one, too, was extraordinarily difficult to bring here."
Tap tap tap.
A woman in her late twenties was walking toward the podium, a greyish-brown ponytail—bound neatly with a cord—swaying behind her.
The hall's murmur surged all at once.
"Wh-who is she?"
"No idea."
"Doesn't she look kind of like Professor Hong Peng? Around the face?"
"I was thinking the same thing."
Murmur murmur murmur.
Byul-Ya stopped in front of the students. Simon, seated among them, stifled a laugh.
Looks like she was incredibly nervous.
She had shed her bizarre—no, outright bizarre—rag-wrapped outfit and was properly dressed in a crisp black suit. She'd even worn makeup; her face was neat and clean. Dressed like a normal human being for once, she actually looked beautiful.
But Byul-Ya herself seemed so unaccustomed to her own appearance that she just stood there in a daze. A henchman pressed the amplification crystal into her hand, and Aaron explained.
"Succeeding Professor Lang, this is Professor Byul-Ya Tun Sokum Marlart, who will be teaching Toxicology going forward. She is the twin sister of Professor Hong Peng, whom you all know well."
Ooooooh!
Expectancy washed over the students' eyes, and this time the male students erupted. The aspiring Toxicology majors were on the verge of exploding with anticipation.
"…."
Except Byul-Ya's condition was… a little strange.
Her eyes were stretched round and wide, her shoulders hiked up so high they nearly touched her ears, her back hunched. At odd intervals her whole body would twitch and jerk in discomfort.
She looked like a cat that had been forcibly dressed in clothes it hated and had consequently broken down.
Byul-Ya stood like that in complete silence for several minutes. The students began to notice something was wrong and started whispering, and Aaron—running the ceremony—cleared his throat and spoke up.
"Professor? Would you care to say a few words to the students?"
Byul-Ya remained utterly motionless, shoulders still hiked to her ears.
The whispering swelled louder and louder, while the henchmen in charge of the broadcast wore faces on the verge of tears, silently screaming at her to please say something.
"…Uh…."
The first word finally dropped.
Then silence again.
Simon's gaze drifted to Hong Peng in the faculty seats at the back. He could see her pressing a hand to her forehead, heaving deep sigh after deep sigh.
"…Nn."
Then Byul-Ya's shoulders began twitching violently.
"Nnnnngh… nn… nnaaAAAHnnAAAH…."
Aaron said, flustered,
"Professor? Are you perhaps feeling unwell somewhere—"
"IT'S! FUCK! ING! MISERABLEEEEE!!!!"
She abruptly seized the suit she was wearing and began tearing at it in a frenzy, ripping it to shreds. At a Kizen professor's deranged behavior, the Great Auditorium descended into total chaos.
Fragments of suit flew in every direction. She shredded the skirt clean down the seam and punched hole after hole through her stockings.
The rag-wrapped outfit she'd worn beneath the suit came into view. She kicked off her high heels one after the other and went barefoot, and as the cord binding her hair snapped free, her greyish-brown hair spilled loose and whipped around freely in the air.
"Hooah! Ahhhh! Now THAT'S more like it!"
she bellowed at the top of her lungs.
The broadcast henchman was tearfully signaling to Aaron, begging him to please, please restrain her—but Aaron, the very man who should have been controlling the situation, wore the satisfied smile of a man who has found his own kind.
"If any of you dress me in suffocating garbage like this again, I'll kill you!!"
Having delivered her thunderous warning to the coordinators, she picked up the amplification crystal that had fallen to the floor.
"Pleasure to meet ya, you little sprats! Name's Byul-Ya!"